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Pendleton Dreadful
Bound in flesh, and inked in blood, as is mortality, so is The Book of the Dead. The Necronomicon ex Equus, as it is often known in the ponified sections of the multiverse, gives license to demons and dark spirit to enter the world of the living. These creatures posses an insane hatred of the living. They will do anything to hurt any and all their paths. This unclean darkness seeks only to pave the way to the End Times, when its full power is unleashed and a world is ended. That dimension is overrun, destroyed, and devoured only for the cycle to begin again. If 'The Book', as it is commonly called, were to fall into the wrong hands (or hooves), it may bestow near unstoppable power through its agents. The Book must be read. It must be spoken. It must...and will...be heard. It is said to have every possible future written within ancient, every shifting prophecies. When it is strong enough...it can even rewrite fates. What can stop something like this? The greatest of champions would be hoped for. The most glorious and skilled of heroes. The exemplar of what it was to be Living to face off against the Darkest Dead... ...What they got was this pony. Rebirth of a Chosen One Pendleton Dreadful was born to Diane 'Diamond' Glitter, a unicorn of Canterlot breeding, and a rough, gruff earth pony named Penitent Dreadful. His father died sooner after his birth, leaving Pen's mother to take care of a foal she saw as the reason her husbard perished. She often would drink away her sorrow as she vented her frustrations, leaving him to be a quiet and withdrawn colt. At first he overate but soon changed to eating sparingly, making him thin and gawky when he finally entered high school. The bespectacled pony felt the sense of isolation despite a desperation to speak and be heard. He was either ignored or bullied but nothing too much more an anypony else. While being overlooked might have been safer, Pendleton still couldn't help trying to make friends. It wasn't easy, but he managed to make a hoofful. They were mostly friends to one in particular, the high school hero, Dark Knight. A paragon of his pegasus ancestry, he tried to look out for the shy brown colt. Eventually, the son of Penitent Dreadful even managed to get a marefriend. This relationship had its faults as most did (she cheated on him and he knew it, but went with it because he didn't feel he deserved any better). They thought celebrating their upcoming graduation at a secluded cabin would be a great way to have fun without being bothered. Instead, it turned into a charnel house. The Necronomicon had been waiting for its Chosen One to appear and it did not waste time in acting. One by one they were forced to murder each other as each one was possessed in turn. Pendleton was the last pony standing, barely, and when he tried to leave The Book tried to possess him as well. Somehow managing to fight his way through the possession attempt the young Pendleton was forced to run back to the cabin for shelter. For forty-eight hours, the earth pony struggled to survive and maintain his sanity as he was assailed nonstop by undead and demon visions. His friends would rise again and force him to kill them once more. By the time the search party arrived, the young Dreadful was crazed and exhausted. Unfortunately, the search party was the next group to be tormented, tortured and possessed. Pen fought his way through them as well however was possessed in the process. This time, instead of trying to control him, the evil of The Book formed a twisted version of the brown stallion. In the conflict, they started to weaken the dimensional walls, allowing another form of Pendleton to cross over, an anthropomorphic from what would be referred to a 'GrimDark' world. This other form of Pen, who later took to being called Dreadful, assisted in fighting the evil doppleganger. Taking the title of 'King of the Dead', this form almost succeeded in beginning the end of the world. Before the spell could be finished the two forms of Pendleton Dreadful charged at The King of the Dead. What left the cabin was no longer one pony, but three. Pendleton Dreadful, the Chosen One, Dreadful, also know as The Harbinger on his world, government spook and murderer of murderers, and The King of the Dead, the antithesis of The Chosen One. To this day, Pendleton and 'Dreadful' act as a two part system in containing the dead king. This condition is unstable and unnatural, leaving with it certain side effects. When he finally returned home, his mother shot him with his father's gun. She had heard that he was responsible for the murders at the cabin and refused to hear his side of the story. Shortly after he ran, Celestia's guard found him and presented him to the Goddess-Princesses. What happened there has yet to be revealed, but it was bad enough that Pendleton was cast into an oubliette. A Decade of Despair After escaping the oubliette, Pen began to drift. For the first few years he lived on the streets and out of the way places, trying to hide from the forces pursuing him. It never worked for long. Eventually, found an abandoned hotel that was still occupied by the spirit mare named Sunrise Cordelia Apracot. She allowed him to stay for company and for the ability to taste the food he ate by a passive connection. This is around the time that Pendleton gained most of his scars. Being a wanted criminal in his own world, he couldn't go to hospitals. Instead he had to patch himself up or have Sunrise help him. The scars are either left by horrible enough damage, or a 'death'. Due to his tie with The Book, Pendleton is shunted to another world upon a death that isn't caused by The Book. One of the ways to weaken it is to kill its Chosen One. Each death rendered him dead to the world he passed away on, and thus he couldn't return to it unless another life was given to The Book to allow him to return to it. It is unknown how Pendleton knows this, or if it has been done before. When Pen refers to some past event or story, it is often this decade to which he refers (pre-blog's events, pretty much), with a change in the tides beginning with his friendship to Red Spiral (myhorrorpony) Blackmane Manor Pendleton takes place in a contest run in a haunted manor (a contest run by myhorrorpony) and this is where he met two of his longest known friends in the Tumblrverse: Dana (askthesojourner) and Darksoul (darksoul4248). Both played roles in the unpleasantries and terrors of the manor, Darksoul himself (itself?) died along with Pendleton, and with his burning display just before their death, he burnt the earth pony leaving him with the burn scar on his left shoulder. Pendleton cannot return to that world or the manner because he is dead to it. However, some small point of pride Pen has in his failure is that his efforts did seem to help Dana in surviving. Since, the earth stallion has maintained contact with both. Darksoul is his rather whimsical friend ("Chaos is not good or bad, but simply is,") and Dana is viewed by him as almost like a little brother, one that needs guidance and help before he comes into his own. The Nightmare Begins - (Bloodied Waters) During one of his travels for supplies, Pendleton makes a terrible, terrible mistake. Ignoring the warnings of the locals the brown equine made his way through a swamp that nopony would dare enter. Pen thought it was superstition. He was grossly mistaken. For this is where he met the greatest fear he had yet to know: Harpoon (harpoonkelpie) What followed became the most harrowing, painful fight of Pendleton's life so far. Harpoon the Kelpie took everything The Chosen One of The Book had and more. He fought Pendleton, the GrimDark other called Dreadful, and the King of the Dead, only to fight Pendleton once again. Harpoon not only fought them all but won. It was only when the scarred pony let him start to eat him stomach first that the opportunity was given to thrust one of his knives through Harpoon's eye socket. It caused enough damage that the kelpie appeared dead but as Pen tried to leave, he was attacked by the ice-empowered toy of Harpoon, a pony named Frostbite. It was only through luck and a Page from The Book that Pendleton managed to escape. The encounter was so terrible that it took months for the stallion to stop screamin in his sleep, and needing a risky combination of hard liquor, sleep and pain medications to rest. He doesn't break down and cry anymore...but it still makes his normally furnace like body turn cold at the thought of. The shark-like bite scar on Pen's stomach, along with the gouges that lead up his sternum, are from the his risky, near suicidal ploy to let the kelpie start eating him for the attempt to kill it first. Hope and Love While Pendleton was still recovering mentally from the battle with Harpoon, he had taken to drinking and traveling to try to distract himself. In this case, it was a rare turn of good fortune, for he met is current mate, the lovely and passionate Snow Storm (asksnowstorm). While drinking and wandering about through worlds, he happened across the treehouse of the silvery pegasus mare. After embarrassing himself, she allowed him inside and the two quickly began to be comfortable around each other. Even the surfacing of Dreadful, Dark (Snow's own wicked side) and an attack by an altered and brainwashed Gamer (thegamercolt) did not keep the two from becoming quickly together. The two soon fell madly and passionately in love, and discovered that their two natures had very interesting side effects. Snow is one of the Undying, the living side to the Undead's coin, and when her presence and blood mixed with Pendleton's, whose essence is essentially distill life, it creates a potent healing mixture, or when they have...very impassioned relations...then plant life spontaneously grows. To this day, she remains his trusted mate and deepest love, as well as being his only marefriend since his first. This is also about the time he met one of Snow's friends, who became Pendleton's close friend and one of his greatest confidants, Maddy (askmaddensun). She was having problems reconcilling the other within her, named Deceptivesun. Through a few mishaps and awkward moments, even the wily Deceptivesun grew favorable to Pen. She granted him the great favor of accepting his nickname for her, Dee. If there is a mare that provoke his protective instincts other than Snow, it would undoubtly be Maddy/Dee. Terror Returns - (As the World Burns) After the bloody fight in his swamp, the kelpie named Harpoon followed Pendleton to his world. The process left him depleted and weak. As he recovered he was assisted by a family of earth ponies that did not live to regret their decision. Ponies still avoid the home ruined by his presence. The horror he visited upon them did not come without a price as the youngest member of the family managed to use his father's shotgun to nearly fatally wound Harpoon. It would be some time before he recovered. At this time, Pendleton visited his mother, Diane 'Diamond' Glitter to retrieve his father's journal in hopes of gaining much more information from the previous Chosen One. His searching in the attic was overheard and his mother's new mate tried to apprehend Pen with his father's gun. All things considered, the earth stallion was being nice when he broke the sports star's leg. After making it look like he killed him, Pen tricked and fought his way through the police ponies which renewed the law's search for the elusive fugitive. While Harpoon was recovering, he had the good fortune of hiding in a lake (the very one only miles from the hotel Pendleton lives in) which was being used as a place to dump the bodies from underworld killings. The underworld of Pendleton's world is under the control of 'The Bugs', the slang term for Changelings. The bodies they dropped into the lake were used by Harpoon as nourishment to restore himself. He did not know he was on enemy lands. The Book views this world as its own and Harpoon's presence as a disruption and invasion of its territory. It manifested what Deadites it could due to the seals Pen keeps on it but in the end Harpoon easily emerged victorious. He found his very touch disrupted their forms and used that fact to torture one of the dead into explaining what it served and who it was tied to. While he stayed to continue his recovery, the activity of the changelings provoked him to take a closer look at them. While he killed all the ones present, he was still badly injured in the conflict. The element this world had that his did not was the presence of guns and developed technology. This experience further emphasized that such tools could make anyone dangerous and would spur him to change his tactics. After leaving the lake, another stroke of both good fortune and the demon's tracking abilities put him not only on Pendleton's trail but also allowed him to cross paths with Pen's embittered and exiled (for his own safety) apprentice, Dusk Setter. It was through the pegasus that Harpoon began to learn more about Pendleton's world and it's instability. This also gave him some idea of the usefulness of technology when he learned that his target had a blog that allowed him to be contacted. Currently, Dusk thinks that Harpoon is a young, skinny earth pony named Wave Weed, and who he jokingly calls 'kelpy'. At first Harpoon was going to kill the pegasus for somehow making out what he was but soon realized that it was simply a foolish comment from a foolish pony. That and he was too useful to do anything about quite yet. That was when the distorted messages began, as Harpoon used his victims to send Pen terrible messages and horrible videos. Eventually he decided it was time to greet the scarred pony in person. While it shocked Pendleton to have his enemy suddenly appear before him, the messages had spurred him to prepare for a fight. What followed was conflict so brutal that they torn the hotel lobby apart and smashed up the kitchen. While the guns wounded Harpoon when they hit him, the fire trap from the oven didn't even evaporate the moisture in Harpoon's mane. The demon used the resulting steam from a damaged pipe to use illusion to cover his escape. Pendleton, while injured, learned that the demon could cancel the supernatural aspect of his Chosen One status by touching him or by getting blood on him. After testing the blood, Pen realized that Harpoon's touch and blood negate and are unaffected by magic. Considering that the fight went in his favor last time, he was not prepared for the trap that Harpoon set. The kelpie set fire to a home and challenged Pen to save the foals within. The earth pony did not just fail, he ended up accidentally killing one of the children. Harpoon simply laughed as he left both the scene and to leave Pen to take the blame. Meanwhile, through the perspective of Laurence N. Orderly (Law 'n Order), we find out just how badly Pendleton's world's been falling apart. While Pen himself has talked about the fragile state of Equestria government, it is now that it's shown just how bad it is getting. Riots and policies of hate, predjudice and inequality have finally spurred the beginning fires but the final tipping point hasn't been reached yet. It's considered a matter of time. The senior officer (who was also there when Pen was taken in a decade ago and who responded to Pen's mother's call for help) had been trying to solver the case of 'The Blood Painter' (Harpoon). Since the marks are actually forms of Old Demon and are classified as restricted knowledge, the Royal Investigative Bureau (R.I.B.) have been seizing control and suppressing information about the cases. When Law finally manages to get representatives from the R.I.B., they reveal that they knew about Pendleton being in the area for years, and they feel that whatever is happening, he either caused to happen or may be an answer as to stopping it. They have been keeping the Autumn Falls PD from investigating the old hotel in the woods because allowing Pendleton to travel reduced the chances of enough necromantic energy gathering to cause a Deadite manifestation. They do not know that it isn't Deadites to be afraid of this time. The death of the Changelings caused Mother-Queen Chrysalis ("Chrysta" to Pen), to call the scarred stallion to her to investigate the bodies leftover from Harpoon's attack at the lake. Viztal, the changeling female responsible for the area, comes to meet him and take him to her queen. After confirming (as much as he can) that he believes they will be after the same thing, Chrysalis agrees to give him some help...after having a snack of her own. Pen's powerful emotions are like an intoxicant to them due to the potentcy and power behind them. This act comes back to haunt her, as Harpoon, thinking Pen was still there, entered the Hive. Two-thirds of the Changelings are slaughtered in the ensuing battle while Harpoon is badly damaged by Chrysalis's berserker minions. An uneasy truce is declared where Harpoon will not kill any more Changelings and their queen will not interfere with his games. Chrysalis agrees only to contact Pendleton soon after to tell him what she's learned to offer whatever help he needs to get revenge on her behalf. Between her offers, and offers from Snow, the EDB, and others, Pen is not hurting for weapons. The problem facing him now is getting fast enough to really make them effective. He's been studying the videos that Harpoon had been sending him to piece together as much a mosiac of the kelpie's powers and limitations as possible. So far, he is the only one who knows much of anything about Harpoon except for the demon himself. No other leads, survivors or advisors have shown themselves to impart any information. A part of his preparations has been training under Mimic . There has yet been no noticeable effect, but it is far from over. This instruction has been hellish, gruelling and painful. Soon enough Pen may long for that as Mimic is not known a tender touch. Meanwhile, Harpoon has become wise to Chrysalis's attempts to monitor his activities and it is only through careful reinterpretation of her agreement with the demon that keeps him from finishing the genocide that he had started of her kind. However, he remains silent. His prey's wedding is coming. The wedding between Pen and Snow goes shockingly well, even with an unexpected appearance from Pendleton's father. The guests remain behaved and those meant to be on guard remain so. It turns out to be the best time of Pen's life and Snow his blushing bride. With their foal on the way, he almost has the family that he always wanted. Unfortunately, it is not to be. Snow told Pendleton about his father's presence and he stormed off in anger. This is the moment that Harpoon strikes because all of the defenses were set for during the wedding, not after it. After posing as Snow using his power of illusion, he captures Pen and takes him to Dusk Setter's house. There Pendleton wakes to find Dusk Setter and Sunrise dead (she was killed while in a mortal form, sparing her soul from being ravaged by the demon as he did not know what she actually was at the time). Dusk Setter had been fed his marefriend's flesh and died from the wounds Harpoon had given him during torture. Pen tries to trick him to stall for time but it only spurs Harpoon into beginning the torture of Snow Storm. The earth pony, trapped in a circle of Old Magics, was forced to watch as Harpoon devoured her right hind leg while she was tied down and marked with the demon's magic and energy cancelling blood. This negated her immortality, regeneration and cold based power. She instead of healing her body began entering shock. Harpoon did not end there nor allow her that mercy. He continued to harm her until Pendleton agreed to his gift of freedom. Freedom in demon terms means removed of ties that bind...and thus he made Pen, in his anger and desperation, inadvertantly ask for his family's deaths. After taking only long enough to bind his wounds, Pen called up the assistance of Mother-Queen Chrysalis's mercenary connections and an as yet unknown group to assist him in getting revenge on the demon that destroyed his life. Before pursuing that vengeance, he takes the bodies of Snow and their foal, named after his father, Penitent, and sets fire to the pyre of the remains of his family and dreams. Refusing contact with others for fear of killing more souls he cares about, Pendleton focused on ending the menace that is Harpoon. Using the assistance of EDB-Command he staged fierce battle for revenge. This involved both tremendous loss of life to any pony in the area. As the fight went on, he realized that he wouldn't be able to overpower Harpoon, so he risked his soul in releasing the King of the Dead from inside his body. The two demons clashed but in the end the kelpie was victorious. Meanwhile, Snow had recovered from her death. When the flames of the pyre consumed enough of her the magic cancelling blood of Harpoon fell from her body, allowing her regeneration. She begged Discord and Murder for the child's life but was refused. Mad with grief the mare flew off to seek a reckoning with both the demon her and her mate. She arrived in time to hold off Harpoon while Pendleton recovered, even going so far as to impale the demon as well as seal it in ice. He freed himself while she was not looking and gravely wounded her. The fight continued. The hotel lobby was smashed in the conflict and the mounting damage coaxed Harpoon to end the game. He tore off Pen's left foreleg and ate one of his eyes. Somehow the earth pony found the strength not only to use the Book to form a portal to banish the kelpie from his dimension but to grab one of his weapons, the double barrel sawn-off shotgun. Harpoon was strong enough to fight its pull, and began to climb an ice tether that Snow had used to keep Pendleton from being sucked away with it. Pen ended the fight at that moment. Husband and wife, both battered and nearly destroyed, had finally ended the menace of Harpoon the Kelpie. Rebuilding* (No title yet) Pen and Snow have been at odds since the death of their son and his murderer. Guilt consumed Pen while Snow tried to cope with what felt like a loss of both her mate and her child. He would barely speak to her or meet her eyes. He would simply focus on the work that the Goddess-Princess Celestia had sent him on: trying to 'fix' the now Dead City of Autumn Falls. In Pen's effort to banish the demon Harpoon, he had allowed the Book to gain a foothold into his world. The tension between the two culminated until a rather frantic period of making up, but not before he caught Joen Klauson kissing his wife. Now that Pen has managed to settle some of the issues that Snow and he had between them, he next set his sights on Joen. It was a tense, and somewhat rough encounter but strangely the two seemed to get along better afterward. Pen in particular realized his terrible mistakes and approach to a situation he ignorantly asserted himself in. The two have a slightly better understanding, and has made a promise to look out for the younger stallion. Dreadful Dreams For an all too brief time, things were beginning to look up for Pendleton. With his backbone back, his wife very...satisfied, he had begun to think that he was taking control of his life again. The two of them even managed to talk about and mourn the passing of their foal. All look well. Which Pen, once again, should have taken as a warning. He was prone to horrific nightmares. The fight against Harpoon had damaged or triggered something in Pen on a fundamental level. It made his power surface more and in a very dangerous fashion (it could burn away the condensed fates/lives that comprise his being), something that also broadcasts his presence to dark beings. So much rage, pain and fear gained the notice of one such dark being. One that fed on such a delicacy. He had gained the notice of Freddy Krueger. It started with bad jokes...passing comments. But then the dream demon began to hit more and more painful matters. On Hearts and Hooves Day, he gave Snow terrible gift...an empty, time-torn pram. This enraged the silvery mare, who attacked him to the burnt stallion's amusement. The matter continued to escalate until threats were made. The only agreement was that Pen would leave Freddy's world's form of Twilight alone, and he would in turn leave Snow untouched. The tension eventually simmered into a boil. Freddy acted first. He entered Pen's dreams and used a sexual dream to cruel advantage which caused friction between husband and wife. It only worsened as Freddy continued to play on it, savoring the anger and distrust he'd caused. It even spread to a couple of the stallion's friends, spurring the stallion back into an alcoholic bender. None of them knew this was another facet of Freddy's plan. With so much booze in his system, Pendleton couldn't wake up as Freddy humiliated him by shoving a large fruit up a very uncomfortable area. When the scarred stallion was allowed to wake, that pain was all too real in the waking world. Viztal the changeling was amused. Pen was not. Snow rushed to aid her husband while Freddy taunted him about what would happen if Snow were to get directly involved. The next strike by the dream demon was far more vicious and calculated...and he did not work alone. Trapping Pendleton in another nightmare in which he replaced Snow as the scarred pony's mate, he provoked Pen into the Chosen One's predictable response: violence. On that edge of dreaming, Pen thought he almost crushed Snow's skull thinking her to be another trick. Unfortunately for him Freddy was far more devious. It was a dream within a dream, and with Pen convinced it to be reality, he let his fear control him. After being bloodily lashed and whipped in the dream, the Deadite forms of his old friends Dark Knight and Dizzy Daze held him down for Freddy to dig even deeper. The dream demon wanted to get to the very core of him. The place were Pen's deepest fears resided. Freddy cut until he found a door that even in Pen's weakened state was so well guarded the demon had to pry it open. All he found was the image of a grey, slender, shark toothed pony with glowing eyes. When he unlocked that door to one of Pendleton's greatest fears he also unlocked the door to the source of one of Pen's greatest sources of rage. So much so that Pendleton was sent emotionally back into that fight and began burning his lives out for the blue flame he had attacked Harpoon with. His assault was so fierce he knocked Freddy out of his very world and back to his Boiler Room. It is also revealed (to the audience) at this time that the Deadites are working with Freddy to torment their Chosen One. The dream demon is left furious at nearly having a powerful soul and then having his prey fend him off. Promising to deal with The Chosen One in due time, he says he has 'a little problem to deal with first'. Since then, the burnt wraith has been suspiciously silent. In the meantime, Pendleton has resumed his focus on handling the Dead City of Autumn Falls due to his world's Celestia's demands he focus on his world and not his personal problems. However, she also does not want another 'Harpoon Incident', so the stallion is permitted to deal with his foe when, not if, he returns. However, it has been noted by Celestia that Pendleton has been becoming increasingly volitile in his work. It is a matter of time before his role is reconsidered in terms of support from the Equestrian government, an issue already touchy since the more help offered, the more Pen is pressured to do things how they want him to do them. Obviously, the stallion is keeping to his Changeling contacts and 'Chrysta' (Mother- Queen Chrysalis) for most all of his needs. While brutal, his efforts against the Book and the Cult that serves it must have been effective if Freddy has not only been allowed but assisted in attacking Pen. Every day that passes, every time Pen finally has to sleep, he wonders if that is the time Freddy will strike again. A pissed off demon with an army of horrors to back him up... ((-More will be added as things progress-)) Misadventures Currently, Pendleton is engaged with two still actively running adventures (rp's) with two other blogs that will be posted when completed. Shining Armor (shiningarmorrps) - Strange Cases - A cult of The Necronomicon has infiltrated Canterlot, and it will take both Pendleton Dreadful and Prince Shining Armor to root them out. Some pieces of information about Pendleton's homeword is mentioned, as well as some things about what his Princesses are like. Luna (forsaken-luna.) - Project Grey Harness - The wicked Queen Celestia has discovered Pendleton on her world and captured him. While imprisoned, he meets the broken, forsaken form of Luna, who he calls Selene for the sake of her psyche, and because he wants to see her free. Small pieces of his personal history are revealed as it progresses. EDB (edb-command) - Roger and Iron Hooves have contacted Pendleton about working together. While Pendleton is hesitant due to his cursed fate, he proposes another idea: a loose association of the more heroic elements of the Tumblrpon worlds... Small Favors (Powers, Abilities, etc.) As Pendleton isn't a unicorn, his powers come from his connection to The Necronomicon, and his use of Blood Magic based around select use of its given powers. *He is supernaturally strong as well as physically strong, and has been seen busting stone and even punching through metal once when enraged enough. *Enhanced healing allows him to recover quicker than others, but it is not regeneration and scars can be left. *Incantations that he's learned from The Book allows him to travel through worlds and other effects that assist him, but rarely have a direct ability to harm since Pen refuses to use it that way. That and it so far curses him out with a lot of colorful language when he tries. *Pendleton's body and blood are essentially saturated with distilled life essence and raw necromantic power. Sadly, most of this power is outside of his ability to make any personal use of, but he uses what he can for the Blood Magic he practices. To undead, demons, and those experienced in dark arts, his blood and flesh can be used for enhancing/feeding them and their abilities. This is part of why he tends to be cautious around undead and the like. *A skilled fighter, much of it earned from very difficult experiences, and refined by the experienced tutoring of Dreadful. Pen is still nowhere as good as his GrimDark other is, but can make up for it with stubborness and ability to improvise. *When enraged or pushed far enough, his eyes glow blue and a similarly colored flame manifests around his tattooed foreleg. It burns even through anti-magic and theoretically could burn/harm anything...but the price is high. The fuel of those flames are the fates/lives that where condenced into Pen's being. Over half of them are gone now and Pendleton has no real knowledge of how to control it or mediate it's use when active. Deep down, he's afraid that the last act of his life will be using this power in battle and is thus understandably extremely reluctant to ever use it. A Different World Here are a few aspects of Pen's world for those interested in it: Elements of Harmony There are no Elements of Harmony on Pen's world...at least nothing active. Only the Goddess-Princesses would know anything about them other than the whispers in old books. That is how long it's been. Even the memories have effectively turned to dust along with the ponies who held them. Nightmare Moon was indeed defeated twice, once being sealed by her sister and the second by being beaten to near-death by her. Celestia still didn't have it in her heart to kill her sister, so she instead bound her and instead of sealing her away she worked with Goddess-Princess Cadence to ease the dark powers of Luna. Eventually Cadence managed to convince Luna that the hatred could be put to rest. Seeing that she had a church dedicated to her just as her sisters did, she was so touched that her memory had been kept alive that she repented to her solar sibling. It was also seen as just another example of Cadence's grace and the true gift of her magic. Discord was imprisoned and indeed got free. Caused a lot of devastation to neighboring communities and twisted reality in nearly permanent ways, maddened by his isolation. Where Luna had essentially been asleep during her imprisonment, Discord had been awake and aware. Celestia and Luna killed him. Where his remains are, only the Goddess-Princesses know. It is considered bad form or inviting ill fortune to even say his name. Magic There are laws governing its use, naturally. Dark arts are forbidden knowledge. More on that with what I address to governance and society, really. If you are asking the power of your 'average' unicorn, it's usually telekinesis and what their talent is related to. However, there is variation and only fools think the mark on a flank is a limitation of power versus a specialization of it. Magical items are typically the province of unicorns as they have the more adaptable and applicable power, though Pegasi might have a version of their own adapted to those adept at 'forging lightning'. AU Awareness The general population isn't aware of the other worlds, but the RIB (Royal Investigative Bureau) and other organizations with access to classified info know. Currently Celestia is having ways of walling off her world being looked into. Harpoon's presence and Pen's antics have her worried about what might be coming next. Governance Governance is blended. The top decision makers are the Goddess-Princesses. They have advisers but those advisers have no decision making power for themselves. It's considered a conflict of interest. After Cadence's breakdown (thus the name, 'The Broken Princess') her advisers have taken up much of the ruling of the Crystal Empire. Celestia and Luna are still trying to figure out how to help her. For local politics, those are actually often democratic, and they are to voice the concerns of the ponies governed. That system saw rampant abuse, and after a few revolts and riots, it was agreed that those elected had a vote to match the noble in charge of the area in question. The tiebreaker vote often comes from the church, who ministers and tends the ponies. They vote largely depending on how they feel the codex of their Goddess-Princess feels. Military affairs fall under Luna. Civil affairs Cadence. Business, Internal Investigation, Religious Issues, International Issues, etc. fall under Celestia's Codex. It is theocratic/autocratic for the most part, with a healthy dose of 'magicracy'. This is what I was getting at earlier. The unicorns are the ruling class because they have magic, Pegasi are the military class because they have a great aptitude towards aggressive magics plus the ability to shape weather for their benefit. Earth ponies, for their often stronger bodies and lack of noticeable, demonstrable magic have long been the lowest. They are the servants, the slaves. They are beneath the magic wielders... Technology Until the earth ponies started developing technology. That's when the unicorns started to realize the earth ponies could be dangerous. The invention of firearms only made it that much clearer that the earth ponies might find a way to tip the balance of power. Using their resources, unicorns tend to buy up the patents for new inventions and have them tweaked to need magic to work. This was one of the big bones of contention between unicorns and earth ponies, and the civil war is actually mostly between them. The pegasi liked their spot, so it's mostly a matter of who the pegasus in question sympathizes with. Social Mobility There's no social mobility as such...pretty much you're at the class you're born into. However, there are noble earth ponies, those that have been knighted for great achievements (things that impressed even the nobles) or creating something of great worth. The earth ponies responsible for creating computers and the internet were knighted and are held in high esteem (mostly because it seemed so harmless at the time, and the younger nobles found and still find it a source of amusement). Race Relations Race relations have always been tense but Goddess-Princess Cadence, representative for the Earth Pony race, always pressed against societal pressure to make sure they were given a voice justice. There was no talk of civil war. Without her guidance...things quickly worsened. Luna and Celestia hope that if they can somehow restore their sister, she can pacify the 'upstarts'. While Celestia knows Cadence would likely side with the earth ponies, she still would rather her sister returned to her. The origins of the Goddess-Princesses are kept secret. No one knows how they became what they are, and it is assumed they were born as what they are. It is considered borderline blasphemous to fundamentalists to even question who birthed them. *More will be added as I get to it.